phantarch's page

So, I'm not sure if this falls under errata, house rules, or what, but am I reading the animal companion descriptions right that the animals no longer get their racial modifier to skills?

For instance, in the Bestiary Preview, a tiger gets a racial +4 to acrobatics, +4 to stealth (with an additional +4 in high grass). But this isn't in the writeup for large cats under druid.

Another example is the dog gets a +4 to Acrobatic jump checks and a +4 to survival when tracking by scent.

So, are animal companions really that sub-par to their counterparts? Was this an oversight? Would people house rule these back in? Animal racial skill modifiers always were what made the animal "normal" for its type due to the lack of intelligence and subsequent skill points. Without these, the animals seem to be very subpar. "Everybody sees my stalking tiger. My hunting dog can't pick up on the trail. I guess I'll just use handle animal to train a decent mundane animal."

Also, and I think this may be an actual errata, but on the PRD the Wolf animal companion is listed as not having low-light vision. Basically every other animal companion does, as does the wolf write up in the bestiary preview. Is there a reason they wouldn't get low-light vision? Or is this just a mistake?

I'm curious if these two work together. If a Fighter 3/Wizard 2 has an arcane bond for a weapon, and the master craftsman feat in craft weaponry, does he qualify to enchant his bonded weapon as if he had the Craft Magic Arms & Armor feat?

"A wizard can add additional magic abilities to his bonded object as if he has the required item creation feats and if he meets the level prerequisites of the feat."

And Master Craftsman lets you substitute your ranks in craft for your caster level for the appropriate item creation feat.

It seems like it should work, but I'm curious about what others think.

So, in 3.5 you used search, which was a standard action for a 5-foot square, to find traps. However, with Search being rolled into perception with pathfinder this is no longer specified. I can't find it, but does it state anywhere that this is still the case? The Perception skill text seems to vaguely indicate that it might be reactive.

So reactive perception check to notice traps, or active searching?